This invention relates to a device for stretching carpets to be laid on a plane floor with nail ledges mounted in a vicinity of walls, without adhesives being used; the device including a stretching head having spikes and being movable via a lever drive mechanism arranged on a base unit.
As awareness of ecological problems continuously grow, use of adhesives for installing carpets is becoming more problematic because such adhesives contain aggressive solvents. Disposal of worn, ripped out carpets, which have adhesive layers glued thereto, is also becoming more expensive and difficult because burning processes for incinerating these carpets are getting more complicated and costly in light of legal regulations.
In order to overcome these shortcomings, the process of stretching carpets, without resorting to adhesive, is used more and more.
In German Offenlegungsschrift 35 30 423, a carpet stretcher is described which comprises a gripping head with a number of spikes projecting downwardly and forwardly from its bottom surface. A knee pad is attached at an opposite end of the gripping head via a substantially air-tight cylinder. When a carpet is to be stretched, the user pushes the knee pad with his knee. The air cylinder serves for shock absorption and transmits the force, applied by the knee, from the knee pad to the gripping head.
This known device is disadvantageous in that a force produced for stretching the carpet depends on the physical strength of the user's knee, which might, in the long run, affect the user's health.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a device of the type mentioned in the opening paragraph above which has a simple and compact construction, can be easily handled and reliably operated but yet which does not overly depend on physical strength of a user and does not affect the user's health.